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Urgent Huge painful poops and straining

Kujen

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Buddy my budgie has started to have really large poops (like 5x the normal size). They are also pretty wet. He doesn’t poop as often as he used to. Maybe once every hour or more. He makes a squealing sound when he poops and looks like he is straining.

I took him to an emergency vet about 3 weeks ago. The poop wasn’t so large back then, but he was straining and making the noise. They did a gram stain on the feces and found nothing wrong. Gave me a week long prescription for Meloxicam anti inflammatory, which seemed to help as he stopped making the noise after a few days. But he still wiggled his butt a little when he pooped and they didn’t look normal.

A week or two later and the squeaking and straining has started again. I’ve made an appointment with a vet for next Monday, the earliest I could for a board certified avian vet. (The ER vet was not)

Does anyone know what this could be? He does have fatty liver so it may be related to that. When I look up large poops in birds, everyone mentions carrying an egg but he is a male.

Also, I have some old Meloxicam from a year ago. Would it still be good and would it be worth giving to him? I called the vets but they refused to tell me anything without seeing him again.
 

Birdbabe

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Do not give him outdated meds.. is he drinking enough water? Dehydration can cause hard to poop..even in humans..does like fruits and veggies? Safe water filled ones..like oranges, apples, melons...can help with dehydration.having an enlarged liver could also be an issue..since theres only so much space in there for all the organs..intestines..ect...have you tried milk thistle? Safe, natural..fairly inexpensive. Good for liver health..Let us know..good thoughts for your baby.
 

Kujen

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He drinks about 2x a day. I give him milk thistle drops in the water. Undortunately he won’t touch veggies or fruits.
 

Lady Jane

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Try some pumpkin in the diet. What does he eat daily. Please list. Very rare for a budgie to be constipated if that is what is happening. If this does not clear up please take him to an avian vet.
 

Kujen

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I’m not sure if it’s constipation. The poop is not dry or small - it’s very large and not very well formed, pretty wet. It’s as if it gets backed up and all comes out at once much bigger. Both the feces and the urate portion is bigger.

His diet is a mix of Higgins Vita seed and Zupreem pellets (fruity and natural). I add Missing Link omega supplement powder on top. Along with milk thistle in the water, alternating days of adding vitamins and aloe detox to the water too. I previously had him on a different seed mix his whole life but recently had to change because the quality had become so bad with sticks and debris (I actually saw a feather in a new unopened container in the store).

I have a vet appt Monday. It’s the earliest I could get a board certified vet. I took him to the ER vet 3 weeks ago but they couldn’t give me a diagnosis after waiting the whole day there.
 
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Kujen

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I took him to the avian vet. He has lipomas and possibly something else inside him, like a tumor. I declined the X-rays because what can I even do if he has cancer? He is over 9 years old and has fatty liver disease. And it would cost over $900 for blood tests and X-rays. They prescribed metronidazole to help gut inflammation and I’ve been giving him that, metacam, and a probiotic.

Unfortunately his condition has continued to decline. He is listless and vomiting. I hope it’s not yeast, they told me quite certainly that he didnt have yeast when they prescribed the antibiotic. I have stopped it now, and wondering if I should continue the metacam because it is so stressful on him grabbing him. The poops are small and liquid and he still strains. I don’t think the metacam is helping his pain this time and I feel absolutely terrible watching him suffer. I feel hopeless. I can only hope that nature will take him quickly now because I really don’t want to make that decision
 

Kujen

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Buddy is still unwell but he went from not eating anything the other day to eating like crazy yesterday. He is only eating his pellets and ignoring seed. I think he has diarrhea now. All liquid poops. He drank a little this morning but he has looked dehydrated for days. Another vet appointment is Thursday.

Is there anything I can do to get his hydration up? The vets said there’s nothing I can do at home. He often drinks when I hold his water dish near him but he doesn’t want anymore than the sip this morning. I know it’s bad to try to force feed them water but I’ve read some people give them a little pedialyte or water from a dropper? How much do you try to give?
 
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Crazy4parrots

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The eating like crazy is the cancer cells :(:( my sister had a dog and she began not eating and then she began eating like crazy.. and my sister said that cancer does that when in advances I’m sorry if I were you I would try give him formula… or put him to sleep as cancer in an animal his size doesn’t have a cure. @Kujen
 

Kujen

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So I have lots to mention! Buddy went to the vets about 2 weeks ago. At the time his poops went from the large poops, to not eating, to eating lots, to diarrhea, to having undigested seed. By this time he was no longer really straining but had lost a lot of weight (from 50g to 32g). They did an X-ray and a PCR test for avian gastric yeast. His X-ray showed a slightly enlarged liver and displacement of his GI organs. He was prescribed 10 days of Baytril in case of infection, which has just finished. I’ve been giving him probiotics and a prescribed omega fatty acid liver support supplement as well. I recently heard back that his PCR test is positive for avian gastric yeast. :( The vet is gonna prescribe amphotercin B for 3 weeks.

But by now he no longer has undigested seed in his poops (I last saw a few the other day) and has gained weight. He has actually improved so much! He is more active and sings, eats well, has gained weight (38g), doesn’t strain except for a little wiggle now and then. His poops are a normal size and frequency, except a bit soft and they often have a white mucousy coating. I’m so reluctant to give the amphotericin B for three weeks when he really isn’t showing any symptoms of the avian gastric yeast (unless the mucous is a symptom?). But I guess it is best to go ahead and treat him because he did test positive?
 
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